Creatures of Forever
by Tears of Stardust
Summary: And Middle-Earth shall bleed... a vampire fic
1. Stains of New

Creatures of Forever  
  
Chapter 1: Stains of New  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own Lord of the Rings or anything associated, unfortunately.  
  
A/N: The vampires here are based on the Christopher Pike model of vampires (being that they are immune to the effects of time a.k.a. they don't age; as they "grow older" they have less and less need for blood and the sun's effect weakens on them to the point of doing nothing; to create a new vampire they must mingle the blood of the human/elf/dwarf/whatever with an existing vampire; they have super-human senses and strength; power to manipulate minds/read thoughts). If there is anything else I remember I'll add it in later chapters.  
  
A young woman sat on a large boulder in the middle of an otherwise deserted clearing, her head hung so that her long, auburn hair hung down and covered her crimson-streaked face. Her emerald eyes were searching the patterns that blood had swirled on to her hands, spilled from a pair of companions that were more than a little too drunk who had happened by earlier that day.  
  
Apparently, the pair saw only one thing about her: her damn near-perfect body. Well, for a human it could possibly be considered perfect, but she wasn't human. Well, the duo had tried to have their way with her, but of course she could not allow them that. She had killed them slowly, knowing that this wasn't the first time they had wandered into the woods with hopes of finding a stray farmer's daughter.  
  
Their bodies had not given her much trouble to move; in fact, it wasn't even their bodies that she was most worried about. It was the blood rather, since she was very messy when she felt like being so. It was barely disguised beneath the spring-green grass, with haphazard dried leaves from the forest strewn overtop. She didn't really care whether it was found or not, either way, she would be long gone before it and the two fellows were found.  
  
She stood up and stretched, her beige, sleeveless tunic and drawstring pants falling into place with old practice. The young woman took very good care of her outfit for she was the one who had killed the animal for its hide in the first place. That was a long time ago though.and she needed a new outfit quite badly for the blood stains on the outfit were beginning to not wash out anymore, no matter how long and hard she scrubbed.  
  
Suddenly, there was the sharp snap of a twig from behind her, a telltale sign of someone who was watching but did not want to be seen. She whirled around and glowered into the forest ringing the clearing directly behind her, reaching out with her mind to see whom it was who had caused the disturbance in the recently quiet forest.  
  
It wasn't like she was afraid of whoever was lurking in the forest, far from it. But if whatever was lurking out in the forever had seen her kill those two men.well, that wouldn't do for keeping her cover low, now would it? She would more than likely be tracked from here to the Grey Haven if word got out that her kind was still in existence. Other races never liked what they couldn't understand and nothing is more complex than a vampire. A 3500-year-old one at that.  
  
"Who's there?" she called out into the shaded cover of the trees. She wanted to seem afraid, for others always felt more comfortable approaching someone who seemed easy to dominate. She was a damn good actress too.  
  
A man of no more than 26 stepped out of the tree line, his sunburned face and callused hands from working in a field making him appear older. But as Yasha knew, looks can be deceiving.  
  
"I'm.I'm sorry miss, but I saw you sitting here by yourself and.well.. I thought you might need help getting back to Gondor, or wherever it is you're going.to go. Not that I want you to leave, it's just." he trailed off, leaving the rest of his thoughts hanging in the air. He was a liar, even one without vampire senses such as she could tell. There was no reason for a farmer to be out on a stroll through the Gondor royal forest with spring planting time sprung upon them as suddenly as it happened this year.  
  
"Well, come over here so I can see you better. The light is rather dim in that direction." A lie from her to counter his; Yasha could see the man perfectly from where she sat with her extraordinary sight. But she had not fed from the drunken pair and she was becoming hungry.  
  
"I.I think I better not." He took a step back as though to flee through the forest behind him. Yasha just had to unveil one of her most predatory grins, the moment was just that perfect. There was no way any mortal could outrun or hide from her for long.  
  
"Why not? I'm just a harmless little girl." Yasha grinned, exposing her now emerging fangs that extended down from her canine teeth. Now she knew that he could see the streaked blood across her face. Now he knew what she was. Too little, too late.  
  
He turned and started crashing through the brush, yelling and making as much noise as was humanly possible. Yasha grinned. The chase had begun. 


	2. Forest Discovery

Chapter 2  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own anything except for the idea for my story.  
  
A/N: If anyone could point out in their reviews if I have some spelling mistakes in the places/characters, it would be much appreciated. Thanks.  
  
"It is coming. A feeling of discontent haunts the woods and surrounding areas. Come, we must go." Legolas' horse pranced on the soft forest floor, the elf's feeling of restlessness being passed on to the chocolate- coloured mare. Legolas' piercing blue eyes surveyed the adjacent area, reaching out with all his heightened elf senses to find out what had caused the forest to have this sensation of uneasiness. The woods told him nothing.  
  
His companion's gray eyes caught and held his own in a regal stare. "Nay, Legolas, we must find out what troubles the people of Gondor so, that they refuse to leave their doors after sunset. Even the once rambunctious pubs are now silently and growing dusty with non-use. A shadow has fallen upon my lands and it is my duty as king to find out what haunts the citizens so."  
  
Legolas merely bowed his head slightly, giving recognition to Isildur's Heir, the king of all men of Middle Earth. Although Legolas had returned to Gondor 3 years after the War of the Ring had ended for this very task, he could not help but feel cold. This new threat.it felt old to him. The same way the Ents felt old and the Balrog that had nearly slain Gandalf at Kazad-Dun felt old.but this was different. This evil.it was older. Ancient, even. "But wouldn't it be wiser to bring castle guards?"  
  
Aragorn looked at his old friend and smiled. Prince or not, there were certain things he had yet to know about getting away with things in your own country. "Why Legolas, what would be the fun in that?" He gently nudged his own snow-white stallion into a walk, indicating to Legolas to follow.  
  
Legolas spurred his mare forward, catching up to Aragorn without any difficulty. "This is hardly something that should be taken lightly," Legolas objected, a rare mood of defiance working it's way into his blood. It was not often an elf spoke a harsh word against a friend.  
  
A frown descended onto Aragorn's previously jovial face. "You are right Legolas. It may be folly to pursue such an evil ourselves." Aragorn reined in his horse and leapt down to the forest floor, a dull thud made when his boots hit the ground. Legolas followed suit although no sound resounded from his own elven footwear. "Yet.I cannot help but feel as though we are close.very close even."  
  
"What do you mean?" Legolas searched his friend's face while simultaneously scanning the forest around them with his other senses, searching for something amiss that would point right to the heart of the problem. Alas, such things are often foolish to wish for and Legolas soon began to wonder if Aragorn had developed a streak of madness.  
  
"I wish I could tell you friend, but it seems I am at a loss to explain it to you." Aragorn knelt down, studying the ground along the side of a massive tree. He pulled up a stick snapped neatly in half. "Someone has been through here.and this is not dead yet, so it was recently."  
  
Aragorn stood up then, surveying the lay of the land. With his keen ranger senses, he picked up small details of a trail that might have gone unnoticed under another's eye. A broken twig there, a pile of leaves indented there.it must have been a pair of people. "We go this way."  
  
Legolas grabbed the lead of his horse and followed after Aragorn with his mare in tow, letting the man lead him to a natural clearing not far from where they were standing previously. In the blink of an eye Legolas had drawn his bow and notched the quiver with an arrow, his elven senses now on super high alert.  
  
The body of a young man was sprawled across a large rock that sat in the middle of a clearing, his mouth open in a silent scream. His eyes were wide with fear and his blonde hair was ruffled and sticking out at every which angle. The most curious thing though was the two pinpricks of blood spotted on his neck.  
  
Aragorn had drawn his sword, also aware of the danger this place posed. The scent of blood was thick in the air and he realized that even the ground he tread on was soaked with mortal blood. But not blood enough to have come from one person; there was too much. There had to be more dead elsewhere close.  
  
"What new devilry is this.?" Aragorn muttered under his breath, unawares he had taken the words from the mouth of Boromir from so long ago.  
  
"We cannot linger. This place has been fouled by the blood spilled here. It does not look like the monster has finished with that one; we should escape before it comes back." Legolas mounted his horse with the easy, liquid grace bestowed upon those of the elven race.  
  
"You are right Legolas. Very well, we will come back for the body with soldiers from the castle guard. The woods, it seems, are no longer safe." As Aragorn mounted his horse, he could not help but feel two eyes boring into his back. He kicked his horse into a gallop, Legolas following not far behind on his own steed. 


	3. A New Finding

Chapter 3  
  
Disclaimer: I own Aragorn, Legolas and the idea for my story ~nod nods~ Hey wait, does owning mean having them chained in your basement? No? Then I guess I don't own them (  
  
Legolas spurred his horse quicker, wanting the mare to put as much distance between him and that cursed place as possible. Aragorn also felt the thinly veiled threat that if they remained that they would become as misfortunate as the fellows in the forest themselves.  
  
There was a sharp crackling in the forest to the pair's right and they reined in their horses, slowing them to a stop by a thicket of over-hanging vines. Legolas had drawn his bow and had it notched with an arrow as the pair surveyed the line of trees that marched back as far as the eye could see. A wind from the east blew down the path toward the man and elf, and they both shivered with the cool undertone of the breeze.  
  
Suddenly, a figure rushed out at them, seemingly out of nowhere. Legolas had launched an arrow before any coherent thought had reached his brain, a talent engraved into his being from centuries of training. The figure went down with a soft grunt and the elf quickly dismounted, the man following suit.  
  
They rushed over to where the figure had fallen, Aragorn quickly drawing his sword should it prove hostile and not dead. When they got close enough to make out the features of this beast, they saw that it wasn't anything to be feared at all, merely a human woman.  
  
Aragorn rolled her over from her facedown position on the ground, and was instantly amazed with what we saw. Here, in the middle of the forest, was a human woman who challenged the beauty of Galadriel. Her auburn hair was long and hung almost to the small of her back, her delicate features twisted into a pathetic mewling of pain from the arrow embedded into her shoulder. She was thin, but she was also covered with a layer of muscle, something Aragorn immediately credited to a life of hard work on a farm that had to make due with a little less than enough.  
  
Her beauty as equally took Legolas aback, but that didn't stop his train of critical thinking. The blonde elf noticed that small flowers of crimson besides that of the injury in her shoulder had blossomed all over her outfit. He thought back to the marsh of blood on the ground that Aragorn and himself had turned from, and wondered if this girl had anything to do with it. As soon as he thought this, he immediately expelled it from his mind. Although she looked strong, Legolas doubted that she had anything to do with the killing. After all, she was only a woman.  
  
She opened her eyes slowly, and the pair felt as though they might lose their minds because of the sheer splendor of this vixen. Her eyes were the colour of deep emeralds that both had stored away in their respective homes. A look of confusion glazed over her eyes, but before that, Legolas saw a brief, flickering emotion pass into her gaze, something that occupied so short of a time that he didn't immediately recognize it. "What . . . who . . . who shot me?"  
  
The elf knelt in front of her, taking one of her delicate hands in his own. He gazed into her eyes and felt that he might fall into their depths and drown if he wasn't careful. "It was I, but only because I was afraid for the king's welfare, and seemingly forewarned to do so by such a spectacle that we both witnessed at a clearing west of here."  
  
"Please. . . it hurts." She gazed into the eyes of Aragorn, and such a pleading as apparent there that he wanted to immediately destroy any and everything that had caused her such pain. "If you are a king as the elf says, then please, heal my wound with your hands."  
  
Aragorn glanced at Legolas, his gray eyes showing something of disbelief. Legolas could sympathize with his position for he felt almost the same way himself. "Alright, but I must warn you: this is going to hurt."  
  
"I am not afraid," she replied, and from the tone of her voice, both the man and the elf believed it. The king gently pried the arrow out of her shoulder, careful to remove the point of the arrow with the rest of the shaft. She gasped in pain and Legolas felt the grip on his hand tighten as she grasped his hand more fiercely.  
  
Isildur's Heir looked at the wound for a second with something of a frown, and then he placed his hand at her injury. From where Legolas was crouched, a fold of fabric prevented him from seeing what caused Aragorn's perplexion, but he could also hear the woman's tissues knit back together at an extraordinary rate. The elf raised his blue eyes to glance at Aragorn's own gray ones. They were filled with first more puzzlement, but then they relaxed into a more relieved look.  
  
The man than gazed at the woman's clothes and noticed what the elf had already observed; the small splashes of crimson that spattered against her tunic and pants that stood out from the beige. "Where, if I may ask, did these blotches of red come from?"  
  
Once again, Legolas saw that briefly occurring emotion reflecting from her eyes before they were once more filled with wondering awe of being near the king of humans in Middle-Earth. "I was out picking berries when I heard a man's scream. I grew frightened and ran . . ." She lifted her hands and buried her face in them, and as she did so, Legolas saw that the flesh by where there was a few moments ago an arrow protruding from was utterly flawless. "I was so scared."  
  
"It's alright," Aragorn comforted, slowly pulling her hands away from her eyes. "But I'm afraid we haven't been properly introduced milady. I am Aragorn, your king, and my companion is Legolas Greenleaf, a prince of Mirkwood."  
  
"My name is Yasha," the woman confided, a bit of trust beginning to creep into her voice. Legolas rolled the name around in his mind. Yasha . . . it was a pretty name.  
  
"Yasha . . ." Aragorn echoed, then looked her straight in the eyes again. "That's a beautiful name. From where did you acquire it?"  
  
"A place . . . far to the south." Yasha looked up and smiled at the pair, the sunlight coming through the trees seeming to focus upon her in that one single moment. A look of sadness then dawned upon her features, making the forest suddenly seem darker than the blackest night. "I miss it."  
  
Legolas stirred from where he was kneeling and locked eyes with Aragorn. The swordsman got his intent and stood up, the bowman following his lead. "Come, we must make haste. There are fell deeds taking place in these woods, and I would rather you stay in the castle for a few days whilst we get this mess sorted out."  
  
Yasha nodded and stood up, brushing the leaves and grit from the forest floor. She was shorter than both of them, and had to look up at their faces. "I would be honoured."  
  
"Excellent." Aragorn made a sweeping motion toward the horses that had stood patiently for their riders during this little interlude. "You made ride with me if you wish . . . .?"  
  
Yasha smiled yet shook her head. "Nay, my lord. If the creature were to come back then I should only slow your horse down. I will ride with Legolas, the elf from Mirkwood." She gazed up into his eyes, trying to discern anything from their magical blue depth. "If he wishes it, of course."  
  
"Certainly, milady," he said, walking her back to their horses. The three of them mounted and made haste to leave the forest.  
  
A/N: No Legolas, she's devil spawn, don't go! ;) Anyway, for those who are wondering, don't fret, Yasha's motives for revealing herself to the boys will be revealed in the next chapter. Review and have yourself a lollipop, on me ( 


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